


united we stand; divided we fall

by SafelyCapricious



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Sailor Moon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Season/Series 02, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-20 23:10:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6028885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a place for Jemma-centric non Biospecialist prompt responses (because I figure I need one of those). </p><p>First up, Jemma meets Steve while trying to escape HYDRA (season 2 AoS divergent)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. won't leave (jemma/steve)

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: “i won’t leave you behind” for Steve Rogers/Jemma Simmons from thestarfishdancer.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First up, Jemma meets Steve while trying to escape HYDRA (season 2 AoS divergent)

The good news is that they don’t think she’s the mole.

The bad news is that they’ve moved the entire base of operations and she now has an apartment on premises and she hasn’t managed to get in touch with Coulson or anyone else for a week. They’d decided that Morse was the mole, shockingly since Jemma had thought she’d been there to _find_ the mole. (And despite being mildly terrified of the woman, Jemma is relieved to hear that Morse had escaped – Jemma doesn’t want anyone else dying for her, even if they are HYDRA.) And since Morse had detailed knowledge of their security systems, the move had been necessary and done at the drop of a hat.

After a month of still not being able to contact the team she decides that she has to get out. In large part due to the bomb she just helped make. (She did work a failsafe in that no one else has noticed, but the failsafe does no good if no one on her side knows about it.)

It is, of course, easier said than done. The scientists are all kept on lockdown these days. So she plans and she waits and when she leaves her room, having hastily faked some other “failsafes” into some of her projects so that they can be found and fixed (while hopefully not touching the real failsafe), it’s during a guard shift change and she’s armed.

 And considering that she’s been working in HYDRA’s weapons department for quite a while now, when she says armed she means _armed_.

 She makes it to the first floor without incident, and she’s ready to send out a smoke grenade on the front door guards when, instead, the door gets blown inwards with a massive crash. Jemma ducks and covers, well comfortable with that set of reactions after being friends with Fitz for years, and when she looks up through the debris and the smoke she can see the slumped forms of the guards – dead or just unconscious? – and an imposing figure standing in the doorway.

She blinks, for a moment, wondering if she’s hit her head before assuring herself that no, he really does seem to have a metal arm and – oh dear.

He’s looking right at her and she’s pretty sure her life should be flashing through her eyes but instead she’s just trying desperately to decide if this is a case of the enemy of my enemy works or what, but before he can do anything with the gun at his side guards rush down the corridor – taking little notice of her – and start firing at him.

He ducks behind the door and suddenly it doesn’t matter who he is or why he’s there because this is still her best chance of escaping so…

The clicker takes down most of the guards in a flash of light. Inconveniently, some of them apparently blinked at exactly the wrong time and – when she rushes through the doorway that the scary man is hiding behind she’s caught by a firm arm around the middle and pulled down and – it takes even her brain a minute to realize that she’s behind Captain America’s shield. The man with the metal arm is behind Captain America, a gun resting on his shoulder and is carefully taking aim and –

“Oh, here, use this instead.” She’s impressed with the calmness of her voice and hands off the dendro-grenade to Captain America who shrugs (his shoulders are massive and she is pretty sure he’s somehow broken physics to be able to fit behind the shield) and tosses it into the hallway.

The flash of blue is followed by silence and she bites back a hysterical giggle when both men look at her. Metal arm grunts and then heads into the hallway, but Captain America is a bit slower, standing up and offering her a hand.

“Thank you, ma’am.” His voice is unfair and she bites back the urge to tell him so – he was devastatingly attractive when she was working on reviving him but when he’s actually moving and blinking and his eyes are very blue and – she’s struck with a wave of patriotism and she has to firmly remind herself that she is _British_. “I have to go help Bucky, but-“

She interrupts him with a hand waving through the air (luckily not the one still holding the clicker which could probably be taken as a threat) “Oh no, don’t worry about me, I was trying to get away and, well, no worries. Really!” her voice is possibly a little high pitched and might sound a bit fake but, well, it’s only just occurred to her that unless something dramatic has changed Captain America does not know that SHIELD exists again and he cannot know – let alone about Coulson. 

He frowns at her, but his gaze keeps returning to the open doorway that the other man disappeared through. (Faintly she can hear gunfire and cries of fear, she tries not to flinch too much.) “I won’t leave you behind,” he says, hand warm but firm on her shoulder and she thinks he might be suspicious and trying to keep her there and –

“Oh no! Really, I’m fine, I’ll just…go?” His expression is definitely getting suspicious and she is trying to figure out if she can run from Captain America (no, she absolutely cannot, he will absolutely catch her) or if she can knock him out with the clicker (she is pretty sure she would go to hell for that, and since being in HYDRA for the past month was kind of like hell she’s not sure she can handle more of that) when there’s a loud crash from the building and a masculine voice calling, “Steve!”

Captain America hesitates for only a bare moment before taking off into the HYDRA base.

Jemma lets out a gusty sigh and retreats – following the trail of destruction the two men left when they came to the facility until she’s found a payphone to call Coulson and the team.


	2. looking at me (jemma/brock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma is on the run from "Real SHIELD", featuring Brock Rumlow, advice from May and soulmarks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is unedited, please feel free to let me know if you spot any mistakes!

Jemma grimaced at the smell of unwashed bodies and stale beer. An illegal fight wasn’t the sort of place she particularly wanted to be, but it met every one of the criteria that May had outlined for her.

After the terrifying screaming argument they’d had – Jemma, at least, hadn’t known they were acting and had honestly thought May was going to possibly kill her – which had ended with May dragging her into a room and slamming the door in the face of her guards and then swiftly whispering instructions to her and shoving her out a secret escape hatch. She wasn’t entirely sure she was actually remembering everything that May had told her, but then, she’d just gone from fearing to her life to escaping so she felt she could be excused.

As her gaze moved around the very crowded and smoky room she tried to recall, precisely, what May had said to her.

_“Somewhere full of people, loud is better and make sure your clothes don’t make you stand out. Borrow or steal a phone and contact Coulson. Keep an eye on the exits and stay in the middle of the crowd.”_

There were people dressed very elaborately here, it was true, but then there were also people in jeans and trucker hats and – well, Jemma didn’t quite fit in, but she was making due. She had discarded her jacket and had her blouse unbuttoned over her singlet and the sleeves pushed up so she could fit in slightly more with the crowd. Her slacks weren’t even remotely similar to what anyone else was wearing, but she was hoping no one would notice considering the density of the crowd. Besides, her biggest concern was going to be getting the phone.

She winced as the crowd roared its approval of another fighter going down and tried to look on the bright side. Even if they – she refused to call them ‘real SHIELD’, they weren’t ‘real SHIELD’, Fury had given his toolbox to _Coulson,_ they weren’t SHIELD at all as far as she was concerned – found her here, the crowd was likely to be happy to fight the agents and give her added time to escape.

It was hard to tell who might be sympathetic enough to loan her a phone – or not kill her if they found her trying to nab theirs – through the strobing lights and yelling. She’d just decided on a slight dark woman who seemed slightly friendlier than the surrounding masses when someone bumped into her quite forcibly.

Luckily it was too loud for him to hear her instinctive, “Watch where you’re going,” because he was massive and when he leered down at her she suddenly decided that maybe May had meant she should go somewhere like a _mall._

“You look like you could use some company, little girl,” he, of course, yelled loudly enough to easily be heard. More alarming, however, was meaty paw he used on her arse to pull her into him. 

Which, well. She may not have been May or Skye, but some things were instinctive. (Plus she had trained some with Bobbi before she’d found out she was a backstabbing liar.)

Her heel met his instep at the same time that her fist met his bullocks, and before he could retaliate she was turning to flee. Only to find herself brought up short by another broad chest – this one shirtless and covered in marks. Her gaze skittered up towards his, whoever he was, face but stopped at the dark tattoo near the hollow of his throat.

 Dimly she was aware of the man behind her shouting. She came back to herself when he grabbed her arm, but then the man in front of her was easily twisting her out of the first man’s grasp and smirking over at him.

The first man backed down, quickly, and Jemma took the opportunity to examine the man who had, theoretically, saved her.

He was broad and tan, dark hair and eyes – one of which was bruised – with bloody knuckles and low hung pants.

The tattoo that looked like a small set of cross bones had to be a choice, a calling card or…something.

 He wasn’t – she refused to believe that her soulmate would be an illegal fighter. What would they have to talk about?

She realized, after a long moment, that he was watching her with a small smile and raised eyebrows. Once she met his gaze he stepped closer and leaned in so he didn’t have to yell. “Let me buy you a drink.”

She considered and dismissed asking him for his phone in the same instant before shaking her head. “I have to go.”

Her eyes kept dropping back to his mark unwillingly, but when she dragged them up again he was smirking at her. “Like hell am I leaving you when you look at me like that, sweetheart.”

She tried to school her expression to neutrality and take a step back, but the crowd had closed in on them again since the earlier altercation and she only gained a few centimeters more of space – space he quickly closed just by shifting his weight. She tried to summon May’s fierceness to her and said, “I’m not looking at you like anything.”

He grinned, slow and sure, and despite the bruising it was enchanting. It made him look younger and mischievous and –

She was definitely looking at him like _something_.

Her gaze darted around, panicked, and fixed on the entrance of the room.

Most particularly on Mack at the entrance of the room.

“Oh…bugger,” she said, eyes wide.

“What’s wrong?” His voice had lost the teasing lilt as he tried to follow her gaze – and then when she grabbed his arm he easily let her move him to stand between her and where her pursuers were.

She tried to smile up at him, her attention now well and truly off what surely wasn’t her soulmate mark on his flesh. “I don’t suppose you have a phone I could borrow and want to help me escape?”

His dark eyes watched her for a long moment before a smile – slightly dark and full of promise – bloomed on his face. “I’d love to.” He curled his arm more securely around her shoulders and leaned in, lips brushing the top of her ear. “I’m Brock, what should I call you, beautiful?”

 Oh dear, she was fairly sure this had not been in May’s outline.


	3. teatime (jemma/bucky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one is resting easily these days. Featuring nightmares, tea, and Bucky in pajamas. 
> 
> Pre-ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited, please let me know if you see any ridiculously obvious mistakes.

The nightmares have become normal. Not that they don’t change – they do. She has a whole host of subjects that her subconscious can chose from for her sleep.

Tonight it’s been an old standard, and it’s almost comforting for her to wake up with her heart pounding and her skin clammy from a dream of falling.

 _Just_ falling.

No Ward there to catch her – what used to be comfort now just makes the nightmare worse – just falling and the knowledge of death waiting for her below.

Jemma wakes up before she lands, of course, and only allows herself a few moments of deep breathing before forcing herself to her feet. Experience tells her that trying to go back to sleep immediately will be worthless and she’ll be more tired tomorrow for the attempt. So she slips into her house shoes and shuffles towards the private kitchen that Coulson has allocated for the team’s specific use. (After the whole HYDRA-inhuman debacle – she refuses to give IT even the acknowledgement of a name – they’d ended up with more allowances from the government and a return of people and funds to SHIELD.)

It’s common for her to run into one of the others – even at 3:17 in the morning (some of them have more trouble sleeping than others, but these days no one’s rest is peaceful) – but since only the team can access the kitchen and attached common room she doesn’t feel it necessary to get properly dressed. After all, by about a month into their time on the Bus everyone had seen _everyone_ less than dressed.

But maybe if it wasn’t three in the morning she would’ve remembered the guest who’s currently occupying one of the spare rooms in the team’s section of the base and she would’ve considered putting on some pants, at least.

Instead she shuffles wearily towards the dim light over the sink, her one hand reaching for the electric teakettle and her other turning on the water to fill it in a well-practiced motion. She clicks the kettle on and braces her hands against the counter, staring blankly towards it with deep exhaustion.

The water has just reached a simmer and she’s starting to sway lightly on her feet, trying to work up the motivation to get a cup and tea bag from the cupboard when he says, “Are you o—Oh shit!”

She jerks badly, not realizing anyone else was in the room, and turns fast enough that she starts to fall. He’s there in an instant, metal hand firm through the back of her thin singlet as he catches her and carefully straightens her. Once she’s back on her feet he lets go and tries to take a step back. He stops and it takes her a moment to realize she’s got her hand fisted in the sleeve of his shirt, she lets go and takes a stumbling step back, heat rising to her face.

“Oh I’m so sorry—“

“I didn’t mean to scare you—"

“Oh you didn’t—“

“Nothing to be sorry for—“

She lets out an embarrassed laugh and brushes her hair back from where it’s drifted into her face. To her right the water has started to boil but she’s having trouble looking away from him.

He looks different like this.

James Barnes – “call me Bucky” – has been on the base for the past week, but mostly in meetings with Coulson. She gave him a very brief checkup when he’d first shown up (and then Fitz had spent about four hours cooing at his arm), but most of her sightings of him have been from a distance with him looking severe and serious.

He looks different in his sleep pants and a worn t-shirt. Softer. She can still see the shadows under his eyes and the lines of stress around his mouth but even they seem softer. He rubs his hand – the flesh one – over his face and then offers her a small smile. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She brushes her hair back again – she hadn’t realized she’d lost her elastic in bed, but it’s clearly fallen out somewhere – and shakes her head. “You didn’t – I mean you did but _you_ didn’t.” She grimaces at her own clumsy words and tries to distract him before she finds himself remarking on how impressive it is that his flesh arm does, actually, match the circumference of his metal one. “I was just distracted by thoughts of falling out of planes.”

She realizes, as she’s saying it, that it might be the wrong thing to say. Planes are certainly not trains but…bad memories.

She can feel her blush spread and she turns away abruptly in order to get a cup for her tea – on second thought she grabs a second as well as the sleepy-time tea blend that she’s put together and the medicinal honey.

“Fallen out of a lot of planes, have you?” there’s a laugh in his voice and it makes the tension in her back release. She knows that some of the other agents have been less than accepting of him and she also knows how upset it makes Coulson – not to mention that he clearly doesn’t deserve it. Being forced to serve HYDRA is, after all, wildly different from knowingly joining.

She offers him a smile and the mug that he takes easily, carefully with his flesh hand. (She wonders, suddenly, if he makes a point not to use the other – except for when he caught her he’s kept it carefully shifted away from her and back and – surely he cannot think she’s afraid of his _arm_?) “I was infected with an alien virus,” she offers instead of dwelling on her thoughts – or on the very pleasing way he fills out his shirt, “and was going to send off an electromagnetic pulse when I died that would’ve taken the plane out of the sky.”

By the time she’s carefully carried her cup to the island and settled into the stool, he’s still staring at her. “What.” He doesn’t ask, flatly.

She flushes, a different sort of embarrassed now, and adds, quickly, “I didn’t think the antibodies worked – they apparently did but there was still a pulse associated with them and –“

“You threw yourself out of a plane to protect your team?” he interrupts her to ask.

She blinks and watches him settle into the seat across from her, still keeping his metal arm angled just the slightest bit away from her. “Yes.”

He puts his face in his palm and mumbles into it, “I want it on record that I object to this.” 

She takes a careful sip of her tea and frowns, and when he doesn’t expand she tries to prompt him. “Sorry, what was that?”

He shakes his head and drops his hand. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

She frowns and he takes a sip of his tea – she’s distracted from her questioning by how his expression lights up at the sip. Some of the lines seem to fade and his eyes look brighter and –

It reminds her of the newsreels she saw at the Captain America exhibit. She’d been willing to believe Agent Rogers, of course, when he said that this was Bucky, but now she can completely see it and it’s baffling that she ever doubted it.

“This is really good,” he says around another careful mouthful of the hot liquid.

She beams, the warmth in her chest slowly burning away her nightmare fears and vows, then and there to herself, to make him his own blend of tea. Something that will chase the last of those shadows out of his eyes. He’s part of the team now, after all, and if anyone deserves it, he does.


	4. sailor science (jemma/antoine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are some really poor hero names and magical science!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited, please excuse my everything.

Jemma should be studying for her biophysics exam and not in the middle of the park well after midnight. She _wants_ to be studying for her biophysics exam, even.

Of course, it’s not like she’s here to cause problems or have fun – quite the opposite in fact.

She’s here to save the city. Or at least to keep this particular monster from eating anyone.

She dodges to the left as one of the massive tentacles on the monster lashes towards her, the vid screen scrolls more information across her goggles and she can see where the heart beats faintly. “Dai—Sailor Sky! It’s two meters below the eyestalk! Aim there!”

Daisy swears, profusely, shaking monster slime off of her foot before hopping deftly out of the way of another flailing limb. “I do not speak Brit! Give it to me in feet!”

Jemma looks up to the sky for guidance, but the moon doesn’t seem sympathetic to her plight at all. “Six feet, ish,” she says, finally, waving a hand through the air and ducking a thrown tree

This would be much easier of Bobbi were here, but the other Sailor Scout had an University visit to go on and had been taken out of the city for the weekend. (Obviously they are all planning to stay in the area, but it’s hard, Jemma suspects, to explain to parents why you don’t want to look at any schools more than a few miles away. She, obviously, hadn’t had that problem, but then, she can do her second doctoral thesis research just about anywhere once she’s finished this semester’s worth of classes.)

 She’s maybe thinking too much about school and not enough about the monster in the middle of central park, because the next hit lands and she goes flying back into a tree.

“Jemma!” Daisy cries, and Jemma wants to shake her because if ever there was a time to use aliases, no would be it.

She’s not like May, it always takes her a moment to shake off such hits, which is why she’s usually so good at dodging. Considering that she’s halfway _through_ the tree, it’s going to take her more than a moment to get out, which is looking to be deeply unfortunate as she can see another tentacle coming for her. She squeezes her eyes shut and braces for impact – only to find that something has scooped her up.

Her eyes fly open and she finds herself looking up into a dark face with a domino mask. And they appear to be flying.

Huh.

That’s…new.

He alights on top of a lamp post which, while an interesting place to pose, doesn’t leave much in the way of places for him to let her down. She pats his shoulder. “Thanks, but, um, I’d rather be on the ground?”

He grins, bright, and says, “Right, right, sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking.”

And then they’re on the ground and he’s carefully making sure she’s steady before stepping back. “Are you alright?”

 She brushes her hair back and runs a finger down the crack that’s developed in the side of her goggles. It’s unfortunate, but she has other pairs that she’s developed at home and it’s an easy fix, just inconvenient for now. “Yes, I’m fine.” She hesitates and then asks, gesturing towards his costume – which really just looks like some modern fashionable military uniform, but not one she recognizes,  “I’m sorry, but who are you?” 

 He laughs and then sketches a bow at her that leaves her blinking in confusion – in the background she can vaguely hear Daisy swearing in Mandarin. At least it’s not English this time. “I’m Agent X,” he says and then winks, “but you can call me your hero.”

 She laughs.

 She doesn’t mean to but – she laughs.

He seems to take it well though, just tilting his head and gesturing back towards the monster. She turns and can see that Daisy is hacking at it with her magical Sky Sword.

Jemma starts back towards her friend but shoots him a look over her shoulder as she goes and says, “That’s funny, I pretty sure she’s the one saving me right now." 

She gets back to Daisy in time to block a tentacle and pass the other woman the echo grenade she’d made back in her lab – stabbing things with swords only works so well.

Of course, Agent X – and she thought Sailor Scouts and being Sailor Science was bad! – has no idea and so when she and Daisy plant the grenade and then start running they have to tackle him to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.

The head injury he gets from the tackle does end up being less than a concussion, so she doesn’t feel too guilty about it. Though as she and Daisy send him off – her after making sure he could remember five words over the course of ten minutes as well as perform a variety of feats to test his cognizance – she does wonder if they’ll see him around or not.

Tuxedo Lightning still shows up sometime – more to flirt than to actually help – but backup is always useful. Plus he had probably saved her from bruises ribs at the very least.

Bruised ribs are her least favorite. Well no, that’s not quite right, concussions are her least favorite, even if they don’t seem to last as long as they should – something about becoming a Scout and the healing process being accelerated (she will hunt down Sailor Widow at some point and get some actual answers, but for now small scale experiments are all she can manage.)

Besides, he was _very_ handsome – even if she couldn’t see all of his face because of that silly domino mask. (After all, not everyone can depend on a chemical perfume that makes faces blur in memories when not looking directly at the person – even if Daisy insists on calling it magic still.)

Yes, Jemma decides, she would very much like to get to know Agent X better.

Even if his hero name is extremely stupid. (Not that Sailor Science has any room to throw stones.)


	5. teatime for three (jemma/bucky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuation of chapter 3, [teatime](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6028885/chapters/13864972), featuring more nightmares, Jemma, Bucky, Hunter and more tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for a Jemma & Hunter brotp prompt, and continues to be pre-ship Jemma/Bucky. I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Again, this has been minimally edited, feel free to let me know if you see errors.

IT is in her dreams tonight. These are the worst. IT haunts her steps, morphing from the spacesuit to Ward – then Will and then people IT never was, Daisy and Hunter and Bobbi and even Bucky.

She wakes up, her skin clammy, with the unsettling feeling that there’s something in the room with her. She knows there’s not, even with the lights off the room is small enough that she can make out every nook and cranny through the dim light coming from under the door. But still it feels as if something is watching her and she finds herself moving to the kitchen much faster than usual.

She pauses, in the door, and feels some of the tightness in her chest lessen when Bucky is there. He’s slouched over the table, fingers clasped together and his forehead nearly touching them, but he’s _there_. And that’s enough, for now.

She clears her throat before walking the rest of the way through the door – he doesn’t startle but she can see his shoulders tense before he glances at her, and they loosen again.

Jemma tries to smile at him, but she knows it’s wan. His eyes soften and he nods, slightly, before turning back to regarding the table.

They’ve been meeting, not intentionally, in the kitchen a few times a week since the first. They both take pains, now, to make their presence known so they don’t have a repeat of the first meeting. They don’t talk, every time, but she does often make him tea.

(It has taken her some time to decide on what blend of tea to make for him – she ends up with several, actually, because it gives her something to think about late at night when she’s letting her heart slow from nightmares.)

He doesn’t have any tea in front of him, tonight, and he rarely does when he’s here before her – though he does always seem to appreciate what she makes for him. (It might be manners, she’s not sure, and that’s part of what keeps her from telling him that she’s made the blends she gives him, especially for him. The other part is that even though they have spoken numerous times she doesn’t feel as if she really knows him and she doesn’t want to be presumptuous.)

She’s putting water on, for the two of them, when Hunter wanders into the kitchen, eyes bloodshot.

He’s not the first to join the two of them in the middle of the night; it’s not even the first time he’s appeared with them. But usually he’s there slightly before her and has his own tea already.

“Oi, some for me, yeah?” he asks, slouching into the chair right next to Bucky.

She thinks that Bucky tenses again, when Hunter sits down, but when she looks back again he looks the same as before and she thinks she may have imagined it. What she’s sure she hasn’t imagined is how he’s turned slightly to put his left arm further away from Hunter.

It makes her sad.

He’s mostly stopped turning away from her – she doesn’t think it’s from comfort but simply because it must be exhausting to be that on edge at all times. And she does try to make it a point, when it’s not awkward, to touch that arm especially, to make sure he understands she’s not afraid of it, of him.

She uses one of the blends she’s made for Bucky – chamomile, rose hips and apple are the main components – without thinking about it. His tea and hers she adds honey to, Hunter gets lemon and stevia because that’s how Bobbi makes it for him. (Jemma does not like the taste of stevia, and she thinks that Hunter likely doesn’t either, but he seems to have grown accustomed to it because of Bobbi.)

“Thanks, love,” Hunter says, when she slides the tea in front of him.

Bucky just offers her a small smile before breathing in his tea and sighing. She can see his shoulders relax further and it makes her smile as she settles into the seat next to him.

“What is this?” Hunter asks after a sip, frowning down into his cup.

Jemma leans around Bucky’s form to frown at Hunter. “It’s tea. Is something wrong with it?”

Hunter blinks at her then shakes her head, waving a hand, “No, no. It’s good, just, a new blend, yeah?”

Her eyes dart to Bucky before fixing back on Hunter. “Yeah, new blend.”

Hunter frowns and takes another sip. “Who’s it for?”

Jemma wonders if getting out of bed was worth it, even with the feeling of being watched. Because this is – she was always planning to tell Bucky, of course. It’s not like her making a tea blend means anything – she’s made one for everyone on the team and a few others. She’s made sandwiches too, and soups for a few – it’s an easy way to show she cares and it’s easy to think of when she’s unable to concentrate on science.

So it doesn’t mean _anything_. Not really.

But it could.

She’s not sure if she wants to take it as more or not – but she knows, most importantly, that she doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable.

She scowls at Hunter, tilting back to do it behind Bucky’s back – not that she isn’t sure he’s aware of that sort of thing – and is just about to reply when Bucky speaks. His voice is rusty in that way it sometimes is when he hasn’t been speaking in hours. “It’s mine.”

Hunter blinks and glances at Jemma who is, she’s sure, blushing. But he just shrugs and says, “S’good. Not my favorite, but s’good.”

She wrinkles her nose. Of course it’s not his favorite, his tea blend should be his favorite.

Before she can point that out, Hunter is speaking again. “By the way, I got you a present on my last mission. S’in my room. I’ll bring it to breakfast.”

Jemma blinks at the change in subject, she was expecting more…something. She’s not entirely sure what. It doesn’t matter now though. “Thanks Hunter,” she says instead, and then when he downs his tea in a gulp and leans around Bucky to give her a kiss on the cheek she tilts her head for it and smiles.

And then he’s gone.

It’s quiet, once he’s gone. Just her and Bucky sipping tea.

“How’d you know?” she finally asks. And then when he turns to frown at her she expands, “About the tea blend.”

His look is a bit confused but there’s a small twist of his lips that’s barely noticeable but that she now knows means amusement. “Who else would it be for? You only give it to me.”

“Oh.” She ducks her head slightly, not sure if she’s embarrassed or pleased.

His left hand is surprisingly warm, against her skin, when he uses it to push her hair back behind her ear so he can meet her eyes. “Thank you, by the way. I love it.”

She’s definitely blushing now. But mostly she’s just pleased that he’s not ashamed of his arm, anymore.


	6. teatime for breakfast (jemma/bucky)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team breakfasts are traditional on Sunday, and since Jemma slept very well indeed the night before she's more than happy to take over the cooking. So happy, in fact, that it's got Daisy suspicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, yet another, continuation of teatime (and teatime for three), it takes place a few months after that. Also for the prompt from an anonymous Erika on Tumblr “you don’t even have a clue about the things you do to me”.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

“More bacon, Bucky?” Jemma asks holding the plate across the table towards him and very carefully avoiding Daisy’s suspicious gaze.

It’s not that Daisy doesn’t have _reason_ to be suspicious, Jemma had been humming to herself when Daisy had first entered the room to assist with making breakfast and staring off into space as a pancake burned.

Which is, Jemma will admit, not like herself. She usually takes pancake time _very seriously_.

But, well…

 She has her reasons.

Sunday Breakfasts have become a very important tradition as SHIELD continues to expand and grow around them. It’s only open to the (old) team or those who have been brought into the team, more or less. So instead of just her, Fitz, Daisy, May and Coulson there’s also Bobbi, Mack, Lance, Joey and Lincoln – and, of course, Bucky. Plus any Avengers that happen to be around – except for Tony, of course, he’s no longer invited after the hashbrown incident of 2017.

Not that everyone can make it every time, of course, but it’s an unwritten rule that if you’re on base when eight am rolls around on Sunday, you’ll go to breakfast, even if you haven’t slept in weeks. And if you have any skill at all in the kitchen you’ll assist, unless you haven’t slept in weeks.

“Thanks, Doc,” Bucky says, grabbing a few slices off the plate with his left hand. She smiles at him, she’s got him eating healthier most of the time, but he knows that Sunday Breakfast is always a free for all and he takes shameless advantage.

(Though he’s always complementary of anything she makes for him – she thinks some of it might just be him being a gentleman, but once he compared her cooking to his mother’s and she’s less inclined to think that that’s a thing he would just _say_ without meaning. But she doesn’t dwell to much on that, really.)

“Doc?” Daisy asks, and Jemma can tell that there’s something behind her tone but she knows what look the other woman is going to give her so she doesn’t bother to look to see if she can discern the unsaid statement.

Bucky, however, she can see, and he shoots her a look before turning and grinning, boyishly, down the table. “She’s a doctor, isn’t she?” His accent has started to come back, and she can hear the Brooklyn in his vowels now. (The last time Steve had visited they’d descended into slang in thick accents and she hadn’t been able to understand them at all. Well, based off of the blush Bucky had been sporting she had a few good guesses.)

“Yeah, but not that kind…” Daisy trails off and is interrupted by Hunter mumbling something incomprehensible into his coffee.

Which, he’s been on nightshifts for the past two weeks and she knows for a fact he’s been awake for close to twenty hours now due to the inopportune fire alarm (that was absolutely Fitz’s fault and _not_ hers), so no one really begrudges him his unintelligible grumbling. Bobbi pats his shoulder though, and that seems to satisfy him as his head falls back down nearly into his cup of coffee.

Bobbi shoves another mouthful of pancakes in and smiles around them. “This is really good, Jem, what’s the special occasion?” she asks, once she’s chewed because unlike some people she has manners.

Jemma turns away to get some more of the fruit compote from the stove and to give her blush a moment to die down. “No special occasion, just wanted to cook,” she says, doing her best not to remember how Bucky had looked, eyes soft and blown wide as he held her hips steady as she sunk down onto him.

Bobbi asks Daisy something, after that, and the table has broken up into separate conversations by the time she sinks back into her seat across from Bucky. He smiles at her and she doesn’t think of how hoarse he’d sounded, later, with her curled up against his chest as he’d run his metal fingers through her hair and said, “You don’t even have a clue about the things you do to me, do you?”

 “How did you sleep?” Lincoln asks, after a few moments of their sitting side by side and eating.

She doesn’t allow herself to look at Bucky when she turns her head to smile at Lincoln. “I slept well, and you?”

He tilts his head, his eyes serious, and she remembers that while she may be acting as a medic to most of the team, he is the _actual_ medic now and the one who has known about her sleep issues. Which means she’s about to get questioned and – she starts blushing and he shuts his mouth on what he was going to say, instead going with, “same,” and a smirk.

She meets his eyes levelly despite the blush and narrows hers at him. “Don’t.”

His smirk gets even wider and he holds up his hands, one still holding his fork. “I don’t know what you’re talking about…Doc.”

“I hate you,” she says, with feeling, and turns back to her plate.

He snickers and then there’s pressure against her ankle and she looks up to see Bucky giving her a concerned look.

Her blush, which was finally dying, comes back and she smiles before trying to hide herself behind her mug of tea.

It’s not that they’re _not_ telling the team, it’s just that she knows it’s going to end in a lot of teasing, someone trying to give The Winter Soldier a shovel talk (she has the creeping suspicion that Skye would do a fun one and then May would actually make the so called Soviet Ghost shake in his combat boots), and probably someone trying to be with them at all times to protect her ‘virtue’.

(She objects to the concept of ‘virtue’ and has given many a lecture on it, which – she suspects – would make the protecting of it all the more fun for the team. Never mind that even if she did believe in virtue she doesn’t have any of it left – which is not entirely due to Bucky, though she has to admit he is by far the most _athletic_ lover she’s ever had and there are definite advantages to that. Not to mention the arm.

Fitz will never let her live it down if he learns that she’s had daydreams about the arm that she teased him about getting flustered over. Fitz can never know.)

“Jem?” Bucky’s voice is soft, and she’s glad, because no one seems to be paying attention and even though she’s found that he’s a fan of increasingly ridiculous pet names, the standard shortening of her name is her favorite and she wants to keep that, at least, private for a little while longer, even if the team is pretty much guaranteed to have all figured it out by the time breakfast is done.

She reaches across the table and rests her hand on top of his left for just a moment, saying equally softly, “I’m fine,” before retreating back to her plate and starting on a second pancake.

He watches her for another moment before smiling that devastating grin at her and turning to ask Bobbi something about some takedown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was only mildly edited, so if you spot anything that's wonky, please don't hesitate to bring it to my attention. Thanks for taking the time to read.


	7. eyes on me (jemma/brock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Dating advice #1: you don’t look at anyone other than me.” Early season 2 very canon divergent, Jemma/Brock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
> 
> Also, minimally edited, so if you see any mistakes please, dear bunnies, let me know!

He’s looking through papers.

He called her to his office and now he’s looking through papers and ignoring her.

Jemma does her best not to fidget, taking even breaths and keeping her gaze fixed on the skull portion of the octopus behind his desk. It isn’t a very accurate representation, which makes separating it into pieces, mentally, and going through their names and function slightly more difficult. 

She’s considering how prominent the zygomatic bones are, and wondering if it is, _actually_ , a requirement for agents because of it, when he finally speaks.

“Well,” he says, and then he falls silent, resting his chin in the cradle of his fingers as he leans forward across the desk.

She waits him out.

If there’s one thing that a month at HYDRA has taught her, it’s how much the higher ups like to use silence as a weapon. 

“Well,” he finally says again. “I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I found out you had connections with us that you’d failed to mention." 

“Sir?” Jemma can feel her brow furrowing, but for a moment she can’t make sense of his words – and then, for an instant, she thinks he means _Ward_. But even though her giving intel to Coulson through her garbage means she doesn’t get much contact with the team he had been able to get her a message though the personal ads yesterday and _surely_ if Ward had escaped he would’ve mentioned it?

“Sweetheart,” she hears and she’s standing out of her seat – even though Bakshi normally likes to force people to stay until he’s ‘given them permission’ to leave – and turning, hand on her heart and pulse in her throat.

“Brock,” she breaths, half disbelieving. She can feel herself blushing, which is good, since that will help sell whatever Bakshi thinks this is – even if it’s just because she’s still not comfortable using the first name of a man she’s met less than a handful of times.

He holds his arms open and she’s in them before she’s even processed – because it doesn’t matter that she’s only met him so few times – she is accustomed to accepting physical comfort from him. And she hadn’t realized just how much she needs it until his arms are tight around her and she can feel the tears prick at her eyes.

She met him a little over a month ago, when Coulson – being particularly unhappy about sending her undercover (which was _fine_ , she wasn’t particularly happy by the prospect, but they needed the information and if she didn’t get off the base she thought she might do something drastic – like shaving her head) – had told her he would be sending her in with backup.

Brock was – is – the backup.

A man that Fury managed to get wedged well within HYDRA and who had climbed the ranks well enough to be able to protect her from, Coulson hoped, anything.

She’d only had a few lessons with him – lessons that were very much appreciated because due to the concerns about a leak she hadn’t even been able to get additional training from May before heading out. (Not, of course, that they thought _May_ was the leak, but Jemma training with May would be unusual and therefore draw undue attention. Whereas Brock was smuggled onto the base and all of the lessons took place in isolation.)

 He’s firm and warm and _safe._  

She takes another deep breath and then pulls back, just slightly, remembering the play and all of his very specific instructions.

He tilts her chin up with a single finger and then looks her over carefully.

She doesn’t move her gaze off his face, even when Bakshi starts talking again. “I am very surprised, Miss Simmons, that you didn’t tell us about your… _association_ with our Mr. Rumlow.”

“It’s Doctor, actually,” she says, eyes still fixed on Brock’s face.

After all, she still remembers what he’d first said to her, after describing in detail what could happen to her if she got caught (but before promising that he’d keep that from happening). “We’re going to pretend to be dating. Because that will allow me to get you alone and be protective if I need to. I am not a nice man, Jemma, and I won’t be nice in HYDRA either, so the rules are going to be strict. Dating advice number one: you don’t look at anyone other than me.”

She’d nodded, seriously, at the time, before saying, “Unless there’s science. If I’m doing science I’m going to be paying attention to that.”

He’d stared at her for a moment before laughing – it was rusty and disused and it made something in her stomach flutter to hear it, not to mention how much his face lightened and how the twist of his lips looked much more like a smile, then, and not a smirk. “Alright,” he’d conceded, “if I’m in the room you’ll either be looking at me, or science. But no one else.”

She’d agreed.

Now, Brock’s smirk widens and he looks over her shoulder to where she assumes that Bakshi is standing. “Yeah, Sunny, my girl’s a doctor.”

She drops her gaze, still not off of him, but just away from his face because she can see the amusement dancing in his eyes and she doesn’t want to laugh. So she lets herself peruse him, like he did her earlier. Her gaze instantly snags on the edge of a bandage she can see peaking out from under the sleeve of his very tight shirt.

“Brock!” she cries, cutting off whatever Bakshi is starting to say, “You’re injured!”

Within moments she has him ushered into the chair she was occupying earlier – which is really unfortunate because it is, possibly, one of the least ergonomic chairs she’s ever experienced in her life and is, she suspects, that way on purpose to make sure no one is ever comfortable in this office but Bakshi – and she’s snapping at the guards and one of them is trotting off to get her what she needs to look at Brock’s wounds.

Bakshi is standing, she sees now that she’s fussing around Brock, behind his desk and, well, pouting. He’s not, however, protesting. Which means that Brock’s assurances that he’s high enough in the hierarchy to help her with whatever she needs was not empty.

It’s a relief.

What’s not a relief is finding that someone has done a very poor job of stitching up a knife wound and it’s already started to get infected.


	8. see me standing there (jemma/will)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His hands are rough against her face, callused fingertips catching against the thin skin of her cheeks but she moves her head fearlessly, tipping it up towards him with her eyes closed.
> 
> Canon-divergent AU, Jemma/Will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for the prompt "don't make me say it" from burnyegowk on Tumblr and is really mostly a thought exercise on loss and grief and delusion, so I hope you enjoy.

His hands are rough against her face, callused fingertips catching against the thin skin of her cheeks but she moves her head fearlessly, tipping it up towards him with her eyes closed. 

“Hang on just a little big longer. It’s going to be okay, you know it is.”

She wants to point out that she’s supposed to be the voice of hope, not him, that he’s not predisposed to it like she is but she finds she can’t even try to say anything around the lump in her throat. Images flash through her mind – the bottle shattering where the portal was moments before, seeing IT for the first time, how the lake looked as the plant monster pulled her under – and she tries to replace them with his face.

His lips brush hers and she can feel the warm dry pressure that is so familiar and she opens to him and opens her eyes and –

There’s nothing there and she curses herself for breaking the moment.

She thinks she’s going crazy – that the planet is finally managing what it couldn’t do before when Will was here to fight it away for her but – if going crazy means she gets these moments with him, even though she knows he’s gone, she’ll take them.

It’s selfish of her to be upset that he’s gone. He was here for fourteen years and she’s been here not for even a tenth of that time. (Besides, his voice in her head reminds her, it’s not like he _wanted_ to leave her. The robot that Fitz – she could recognize his work anywhere – sent through the portal clearly wasn’t equipped to make any decisions, it had sensed a human heat signature and grabbed him and – he’d been reaching for her when he was dragged backwards and if only she hadn’t hurt her leg a few days prior she would’ve been able to reach him but –)

She chokes back the what-could-have-beens and rubs vigorously at her face, scrubbing away tears and exhaustion. She has enough food for now, they’d been gathering enough for a few weeks at a time and with him gone and her appetite decreased she’s likely going to have to throw some of it out for going bad.

He’s safe. Her team will take care of him and he’s on Earth and –

She resigns herself to spending another day in bed, mourning him instead of managing anything productive – not that there’s anything productive to do.

The sheets still smell a little like him and it’s – she know it’s going to fade and going to fade quicker the more time she spends in them (hygiene not being what it could be and hers taking a definite turn for the bad since his loss) but she still finds herself curled up on his pillow and crying. Again.

After dinner, she uses his ‘recipe’ even though hers is so much better – again, being a relative term, she plays wall-ball. There’s a sandstorm raging outside and she laughs – they’ve been more frequent since Will’s escape from the planet and she’s sure there’s a monster somewhere throwing a very loud tantrum that he lost his favorite toy.

She decided to be viciously pleased about it instead of dwelling on the fact that she wishes she could throw a tantrum. She’s being selfish and unfair and –

What would Will have done, if she’d been the one taken? 

The thought draws her up short and she lets out a shuddering breath.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into the stale air of their cave home. “I’m being a brat, aren’t I? You would be nothing but happy if it was the other way around and I’m just…I’m just _jealous_. I’m jealous of the team because they get you and I don’t –“ She presses a trembling fist to her mouth and braces her other hand against the wall for support. “I hope,” she says a little louder, voice breaking, “that you are eating in a shower and taking a nap there – you would do that for me, wouldn’t you?”

This time when she cries it feels like a dam breaking. She lets all of her pain and guilt and grief and jealousy leak out of her and into the dust at her feet and though she feels weak and shaky and not a little dehydrated when she’s done she also feels better.

“I love you,” she says when she folds up the clothes of his that will never fit on her frame and tucks them into the back of their makeshift trunk.

“I miss you,” she says when she marks new spots on the wall – because while the original idea of Wall-Ball was ingenious she had some ideas for improving it and now that she has nothing but free time has gone about rearranging the room to better allow it.

Once the dark depression fades a little, and she wishes she could blame It like he always did but she knows it’s not that, she goes back to their research. She’s able from the calculations she did manage before the last of the battery died to come up with a hypothetical equation that _might_ tell her where and when the monolith will be opening next (although it’s far from certain).

She keeps careful track of the days, arguing some days with the Will in her head and tilting her head into his hands while he tells her to be careful, and when a day finally comes that it should be opening without walking distance she’s ready. 

So is It though, apparently, and the sand storm keeps her huddled inside.

Given the lack of a definite day or night, although now she can tell from the sky what time it is it wasn’t something she thought to do when she first landed on the planet, she’s not entirely sure if she’s correct, but she still celebrates a year on the planet. She wraps herself in Will’s jacket and goes and lies on the ground right outside one of the entrances to their cave and she stares at the sky and talks to him.

She’s rambling about constellations when he interrupts. “Jemma.”

She sighs and closes her eyes tightly, feeling his warmth at her side. “Don’t make me say it, Will.”

 “Jemma!” he says a little more urgently and she realizes it’s not coming from the imaginary presence at her side. She tenses and opens her eyes.

It has been trying new techniques to get to her – last week she could hear Skye so clearly she actually almost left the cave before realizing that there was no way the portal was opening so soon and so close. Since then she’s heard Fitz and Bobbi and now, Will.

She gives up her little mini celebration and grabs the glass bottle that held the worst wine in the world (now filled with water) and retreats back into her cave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I appreciate you letting me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> You can find my writing tumblr [here](http://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/). <3 Prompts are always welcome! Come say hi!


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